In his letter Ballmer expressed frustration at this "limited interaction," stating that what little action the pair had was not "meaningful." He states that this is "unfortunate." Ballmer fumes, "Our goal in making such a generous offer was to create the basis for a
speedy and ultimately friendly transaction. Despite this, the pace of
the last two months has been anything but speedy."

Ballmer writes that Yahoo has two choices -- accept the offer within three weeks and prepare for the merger in earnest or face a proxy battle in which Microsoft will seek to oust the Yahoo's board of directors and replace them with a new pro-Microsoft board.

Microsoft increasing aggression in its hostile takeover attempt seems to confirm reports by analyst that Microsoft would not raise its bid, which offers a 62 percent premium on the company. Ballmer writes angrily, "The public equity markets and overall economic conditions have weakened considerably. At the same time, public indicators suggest that Yahoo!’s search and
page view shares have declined. Finally, you have adopted new plans at
the company that have made any change of control more costly."

Microsoft hopes to avoid a proxy battle, but is willing to enter one if necessary. Such a battle would be costly both financially and to the reputation of Microsoft. However, it would be particularly costly to Yahoo, which would be rocked by having its board deposed. Ballmer states that if the terms are not met, the proxy battle will begin in three weeks. Warns Ballmer, "If we are forced to take an offer directly to your shareholders, that
action will have an undesirable impact on the value of your company."

A Yahoo spokesman would not comment on the letter. For the full Ballmer letter, refer here.

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This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

If it's by Jason Mick and it's about Microsoft, chances are that it's highly exaggerated and unnecessarily anti-Microsoft. It's become a disturbing pattern on DailyTech, and I wish they'd put a stop to it.

Completely agree, he's a sensationalist at best and does more damage to their reputation than the page hits are worth. Luckily most of the stories are covered in better fashion on other sites which I noe tend to frequent more often than I did before.

Thank goodness someone else noticed this. I dont know if Jason has stocks with Apple because all he does is exaggerate any negatives about microsoft and ignore the positives. Read his "NEWS" about Apple, compare that with "NEWS" about Microsoft. Hey Jason, if you hate microsoft so much, you need to find another way of doing your job because it is now obvious you cannot be objective in reporting NEWS. Maybe you should focus more on OPINIONS.

I try to call him out whenever I see one of these stories on DailyTech. I always know when I see certain headlines that I am going to click on them and see that they are written by Jason Mick. And they are almost always accompanied by a crazy picture of Ballmer. (Not that Ballmer doesn't bring that on himself.) DailyTech claims that Jason Mick doesn't even own a Mac. I call shenanigans. He writes these anti-Microsoft articles in an exaggerated way that only a Mac fanboy can write.

In the long run it doesn't matter. Apple saw a big jump in Mac sales when the Intel machines started hitting the market. Now the Windows users can have cool looking hardware while still being able to use Boot Camp to run Windows. In other words, they get the good looks without having to use Mac OS. That makes Apple just another hardware maker.

As an experienced DT reader, you should know that a few reporters or bloggers report stories biased heavily in a certain direction. Not all of them are like this, some are very fair in reporting stories.

Whilst I believe there should be a site FAQ pointing out the preference of various posters, any regular visitor already knows what to expect of them. For new visitors, it would be helpful to include a link to an unbiased third-party's short description of the author's beliefs, so they know that some people here only provide links to support one side of an argument, whilst ignoring far more links which are against it.

Agreed, but it goes both ways. I noticed this is true of Jason Mick, but it has also been true of Brandon Hill (on the MS side of things). I run mixed networks, and I dont feel the need for "Cheerleading" whether its Windows, Mac or otherwise. Also, I dont feel the need for preference "Bashing" whether its Windows, Mac or otherwise.I thought DT was a tech site, but I have been corrected that its only a blog. Its not always about the facts, but the spin the author puts on the story. I am not sure why its the "Best kept secret on the web". Fanboy sites are a dime a dozen.